NBER Misses the Transparency Lesson

The Federal Reserve has become more transparent about its deliberations and actions since the 2008 financial crisis. But the National Bureau of Economic Research missed an opportunity to be transparent at a big Fed conference Wednesday.

The NBER, a body of academic economists, kept reporters out of most of a conference in Cambridge, Mass., on the Fed’s 100-year anniversary, even though bankers and hedge fund representatives were allowed in to mix and mingle with a coterie of senior Fed officials and academics.

Reporters were admitted to the ballroom of the Royal Sonesta Hotel to cover a keynote address by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. But the media were barred from five other panels on the Fed’s history, financial regulation, and other matters.

Hundreds of people were on hand for those other panels, including a big turnout of senior Fed officials such as Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker, Chicago Fed President Charles Evans, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard, William English, head of the Fed’s monetary affairs division, and others.

Economists from big banks — including Goldman Sachs economist Jan Hatzius Morgan Stanley economist David Greenlaw and Barclays Capital economist Dean Maki — were among the hundreds in attendance at these panels. So were some representatives from hedge funds, including Brian Sack, the former head of the New York Fed’s markets desk who now works at D.E. Shaw.

James Poterba, a president of the NBER and a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor, said the NBER decided to keep the conference off-the-record and sent out invitations saying as much. He said it wasn’t in a position later to reverse the rule once reporters expressed interest in attending the day’s full events.

But he added that the NBER will post videos of the panels at a later date.

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